Editor's Notebook

Feb 25, 2012 | 3:00 AM

ONLINE PRIVACY

- We appreciate state attorneys general - including Maryland's Douglas Gansler - taking an urgent interest in the issue of online privacy.

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But most of us will be better off if we remember that "online privacy" is a contradiction in terms. It doesn't matter if you're sitting alone with your computer in a locked room. Once you're online, you're out in the open in a way that makes Times Square at rush hour comparatively private.

Gansler has joined 35 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to Google CEO Larry Page objecting to a new privacy policy that the state officials think will make users more vulnerable to identity theft.

Under the policy, starting March 1 Google will pool data from all its different platforms, including YouTube. Google says it doesn't plan to sell the information. But customers, Gansler complained, cannot opt out - not without canceling their accounts.

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The state attorneys general and the White House - which released a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights this week - may jawbone the online giants into offering privacy options that otherwise wouldn't be available. We hope so.

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But, as Brendan Greeley wrote on the Bloomberg Businessweek website, when we get services for free from firms like Google and Facebook, "we are not their customers. We are their product." One way or another, the copious information we're volunteering will be used, either by the online companies themselves or by the advertisers who are the companies' real customers.

- As we wrote yesterday, it's much too early for the state's legislators to be asking Maryland voters to approve another casino in Prince George's County, or anywhere else.

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But if the legislators have to ask the voters something on this general issue in November, perhaps it should be whether to allow "table games" - roulette, blackjack, poker, craps and the like - at the five already-approved casinos.

We predicted for years that slots would eventually mean all-out casino gambling in Maryland, and we're hardly delighted at the prospect. But with table games already well established in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, it's becoming clear Maryland casinos will need them, too, if they are supposed to compete in a multistate market.

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As this will require amending the state constitution, perhaps voters should be asked about it this year, rather than in 2014.

This is the fourth year for the event, which was started by the Annapolis Business Association to help restaurants through the winter slump and give more area residents an affordable chance to experience this area's huge variety of fine cuisine. The special menus offer everything from beef bourguignon to pad thai, from cioppino to fish and chips.